Cognitive Information Processing (3)

I am reading the last part of the chapter Cognitive Information Processing. As per the findings of George Miller (1956), our memory span is seven items. Working memory capacity can be increased through creating larger bits of data or information. This process is called chunking.

Chunks of information are like politicians?!!
They are stored in the working memory in a series of slots. As new chunks arrive at the memory, they push the old chunks from their slots!

According to Brown (1958) and Peterson and Peterson (1959), the duration of the working memory decays with time.
In order to stop this decay and to ensure the information being transferred to the long-term memory, rehearsal and encoding is needed. Encoding is the better option than rehearsal.

Rehearsal means repetition. This will help to keep the information for a limited period of time in the working memory. This is not a good method to remember something for a long time.

Encoding is the process of relating the incoming data or information to concepts or ideas already in the memory in such a way that the new material is more memorable. There are different encoding methods available. Group related pieces of information into categories by Bousfield (1953), subjective organization on the material Tulving by (1962) Outlines by Glynn & Divesta (1977) are some of the methods.

Mnemonics and Mediation Matlin (1983) are another effective means for encoding. I remember an old Mnemonics I used to remember the order of calculations in algebra, “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally” to (Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction).

One of the old Chinese proverbs says, “A Picture's Meaning Can Express Ten Thousand Words”. So imagery can be an effective means encoding information.

(Reference: Driscoll, M (2005). Psychology of Learning For Instruction. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.)

Cognitive Information Processing (2)

When we talk about information processing in the memory, attention is an important factor. I remember my tenth grade biology teacher. He used to draw pictures as a part of his lecture. He used different colored markers in his work; Very clear, very neat. When he starts to draw, everybody in our class enjoyed that. Still I remember his teachings. The final result was; all of us did very well in biology! That was my biology teacher’s technique to get our attention.

If a student is not attending well in the class, he/she may loose some data or information to be learned. I have seen students who are lost. They seem to be listening to the lecturers. But if you ask even a very simple question, they won’t answer. But from the time, the question is asked; you can find that student attending the lecture. The wakeup call made them awake. They retrieved their attention.

Newton’s universal first law (1642-1727) is coming to my mind. Of course Newton’s laws are universal. They can be applied any where. First law is the law of inertia. It states that every body continues in it state of rest or of uniform motion until it is compelled by an external force. If attention is lost, you need to use an external force to bring it back!
Each learner has an ability to select and process certain data and information while simultaneously ignoring other information’s. The selected data or information is having a meaning according to the learner.

One of my friends argued me last week that, “Our brain is having a better filtering ability when you compare it with a computer. In a computer, it accepts and store any piece of information stored in it and then ends up by filling its capacity with unwanted materials!!”

I told him my thoughts are different. We accept data and information from outside world through our senses. We may or may not know this! Not always our filtering system knows which data or information is important. Surely, some of the so called 'unwanted materials' enter our long-term memory. Our brains capacity is so big compared to a computer hard disk drive. Most of us may be using an average of 10% of our brain capacity. If you are able to fill your "brain disk drive" to a 100%, the situation will be the same!!

Another friend doubted, “It is hard to imagine that somebody can focus or process all the signals for all five senses equally in the same time, at least not me.” I wrote to him, “Most of us can focus on one thing at a time. But try this some time! Pour water to your hands and drink it. Are you seeing the water?! Are you feeling the water?! Are you hearing the sound?! Are you tasting the water?!” We are different from a computer that we got an ability to select and process certain data and information while simultaneously ignoring other information. It’s the lack of attention or the attention toward one data or information.

We read a novel for the gist of a story, and the reader may be hard pressed to recount very specific details when they are finished. On the other hand, textbook will be read with a specific purpose in mind. - To locate and learn important information. This makes the reading a text book harder. I think it is a good idea to treat a textbook or technical manual as a novel!

Driving a car in a light traffic is a best example for automaticity. When a task is overlearned or source of information become habitual, to the extent their attention requirement are minimal, automaticity has occurred.

Pattern recognition is also another important Information processing method. This is about comparing the incoming information with the prototype already present in memory.

As a human, we need to show interest in the subjects I need to learn, by engaging my senses more. This will make the learning easier for us.

(Reference: Driscoll, M (2005). Psychology of Learning For Instruction. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc..)

Cognitive Information Processing (1)

This week our assigned chapter is Cognitive Information Processing. It says human learner is a processor of information in much the way a computer is.

When learning occurs, information is input from the environment, processed and stored in memory, and output is the form of some learned capability.

It is so interesting that what I was teaching in computer organization become my study subject. Only difference is the present subject deals with human. In both the case, the processing steps are Input, Process, Output and store. In the case of a computer data is given to process as information. In the case of human Stimuli become inputs and behavior becomes the output and what happens in between is the information processing.

Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) proposed the multi-store, multistage theory of memory. “From the time information is received by the processing system, it undergoes a series of transformations until it can be permanently stored in memory.

Information Processing has different stages. Sensory memory is the first. Lot of data from outside world enters through our senses. All the five senses, Sight, Hearing, Smell, Touch and Taste have different processing capabilities. Sight is the major sense. Hearing is another important sense. At this point I think it is appropriate to remember the difference between “data” and “information”. Data is the row information. Data on its own has no meaning, but becomes information when it is processed. Information is a collection of facts or data. Sensory memory holds the data for a very short period.

Data is transferred to Working memory for further processing. It is linked to Consciousness. Long-term memory is the permanent memory. The processed data or the information is stored in this memory. I see myself as an information-treating organism with sensory capacities and memory load limits.

The capacity of the humans’ long-tem memory is virtually limitless. The human brain has the potential to store huge amounts of information. The problem is not in the storage but in the retrieval.


(Reference: Driscoll, M (2005). Psychology of Learning For Instruction. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc..)

Behaviorism - A study (Part 2)

This week is the behaviorism week. It is so interesting to discuss this. Dr. Quinn made all of us to study the subject very well. Now we all are arguing each other to confirm Behaviorism's claim that we should or should not posit mental states.
I think majority of us with “should have mental state” statement.
As I wrote in the discussion board of our class,
One of my students in Oman was very good in studies. He was having very good behaviors. One day I found, he is behaving differently. I felt that, he is in my class physically; but mentally not! I had a personal meeting with him. As I suspect, he happened to have a family problem which he cannot discuss with everybody. That incident shows me how his mental status affects his behavior and learning capacity.
One example is every baby can learn the sounds of any language when it is exposed to them. According to Chomsky, this is possible only because there is an innate ability in human brain/mind to learn language.
The opposite argument is we should not posit mental states, but must only work with inputs (stimulus) and outputs (response). That argument tells us that give a stimulus, get the response. In certain situations, this argument is true. Like one of my class-mate tells her experience about her last visit to china with her child. Her child was reluctant to learn Chinese because he felt it was boring and no use. At his visit to China he found difficulty in communion with others. So he started to learn Chinese very hard after the trip.
My wife and I were discussing this situation. Her thoughts were helpful for me to decide my position in this argument. I responded back my class-make back like this, “Of course there was a mental stress when your son cannot communicate with others. That mental state forced him to learn Chinese language. Also this is an example for an environmental need. In this case, the stimulus is the need of communication and the response is study of Chinese language".
(Psychology of Learning for Instruction Marcy P. Driscoll, 06/16/2006 9:45 pm, updated on06/18/2006)

Behaviorism - A study (Part 1)

When we think about Radical behaviorism, we remember two prominent theorists, J. B. Watson and B. F. Skinner. The idea of behaviorism was introduced by John B. Watson. According to him, psychology should be concerned only with the objective data of behavior. Skinner believed that behavior could be fully understood in terms of environmental cues and results. His black box metaphor of behaviorism he consider Learner as a black box and nothing is known about what goes on inside. Knowing what’s inside is us not essential for determining how behavior is governed by its environmental antecedents and consequences. For him learning as more or less permanent change in behavior that can be detected by observing over a period of time. He distinguished two classes of behavior, respondent and operant.

Respondent behavior from Pavlov’s classical conditioning experiments refers to behavior that is elicited involuntarily in reaction to stimulus. Dog’s salivating to food is an example. But operant behavior is emitted by organism. Student raising his hand is an example. As per skinner’s argument, a dog will vary its behavior if it got a stung by the bee when put its nose in a bees nest.

Behavior is more likely to reoccur if it has been rewarded, or reinforced. Similarly response is less likely to occur again if its consequence has been aversive.

Skinner says that, contingent stimulus determines what happens to the response, whether it is reinforced or lost.

(Psychology of Learning for Instruction Marcy P. Driscoll, 06/14/2006 10:30 pm)

MIST - Learning Theory

My Professor Dr. Clark Quinn selected 'Psychology of Learning for instruction' as the part of our Masters program. The author March P. Driscoll is a scholar in Educational Psychology and Learning system. The book is an excellent textbook about the psychology of learning and memory in instructional settings” Says Robert G. Winningham, Westen Oregon University.

My Professor wrote in his blog (http://www.learnlets.com/) about his initial experience with the course. “This course is on learning theories, and I’ve read most, but will get deeper on Ausubel and Bandura through the text (Driscoll’s wordy but perfect coverage in Psychology Of Learning For Instruction). It’s more fun than when I designed a similar course for American Intercontinental University a few years ago, since I haven’t to follow their interesting but constrained template (and didn’t teach it).”

For me this subject is totally new. I need to read the book more than one time to understand the concepts. I always like and wanted to study new subjects. Studying 'Learning theory' with Dr. Quinn is a great experience to me.

How to create a Blog?

Blog is the short form for Weblog.
It is a website in which you can enter regular entries; like you do in a journal or diary.
There are some websites offering this service free of cost.
You need to register for that.
Mainly blogs uses text as the medium.
But when audio is used as the medium, it’s called audioblogs or Podcasts.
When video is the medium it’s called videoblogs.

To create one, I used one of the best and free blog website.

If you like to create one for you, please follow the link: http://www.blogger.com/start and follow the steps in the picture below.

This is for my friends who need a help in creating a personal Blog.

Best of luck!

Welcome

Look at me. I am a blogger now. It's fun.